1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector adapted for attachment to flexible printed circuit boards such as the so-called flexible printed cables ("FPC") or flexible flat cables ("FFC") that have to be electrically connected to electric or electronic devices or apparatuses.
2. Prior Art
An example of those connectors known in the art and designed for use with flexible printed circuit boards is disclosed in the Japanese Laying-Open Gazette of Unexamined Utility Model No. 6-77186. As shown in FIGS. 12 and 13 accompanying the present specification, such a prior art connector comprises an insulating housing 41 having a horizontal top wall 42 whose front portion is cut off to provide an accessible opening or space 43 opened forward and upward. A plurality of conductive contacts 45 are installed in the housing 41 at regular intervals and in a direction perpendicular to the drawing figures. Each contact 45 has a resilient beam 47 U-shaped in cross section and extending from the contact's body 46 and in parallel with a bottom 44 of the insulating housing. The body 46 is fitted in a rear opening of the housing 41. A conductive protrusion 48 integral with and jutting from a free end of the resilient beam 47 serves as a contact point exposed in the accessible space 43. Each contact 45 has an arm 49 extending from the body 46 in parallel with the horizontal top 42 of the housing. The arm 49 has a generally round free end facing the space 43 and serving as a pivot 50. On the other hand, an insulated pressing cover 51 disposed in the space 43 is rotatable about the pivots 50. This pressing cover 51 is capable of swinging between its closed pressing position adjacent to the protrusions 48 and its opened releasing position remote therefrom. Each curved recess 52 of the cover 51 is of an arcuate cross section fitting on and slidingly engaging with the pivot 50, and the cover further has bulged portions 53. With the insulated pressing cover 51 having swung to the pressing position, each bulged portion 53 will press against a flexible printed circuit board 30 laid on the resilient beam 47. Thus, a conductive circuit pattern 31 formed on that flexible board 30 will electrically engage with the conductive protrusion 48 of each contact 45.
Those metal pivots 50 of the contacts 45 looks like comb's teeth and may be regarded as functioning as discontinuous segments of a rigid and strong metal shaft, in the prior art connector for flexible printed circuit boards. The pressing cover 51, whose curved recesses 52 are held in position by and rotatable about the metal pivots 50, is however made of a plastics less rigid and much weaker than those pivots. Due to their repeated swing to the pressing position, those recesses 52 formed of the plastics are likely to undergo deformation such that the cover's force of pressing the flexible printed circuit boards would be lowered or become uneven or less reliable.
Further, each flexible board 30 must lie with its face down when inserted into the connector so that its conductive circuit pattern 31 comes into contact with the resilient beam 47. This cumberxome requirement has been another problem in handling and/or using the prior art connectors of the described type.